The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 4

_December_4.

Went to the Veterinary Surgeon and begged of him the skull of a horse.

Carried the trophy home under my arm--bare to the public view. "Why, Lor', 'tis an ole 'orse's jib," M---- said when I got back.

[1] There are numerous drawings of dissections scattered through the Journal about this period.

1909

_March_ 7.

My programme of work is: (1) Continue German. (2) Sectioning embryo of (_a_) Fowl, (_b_) Newt. (3) Paper on Arterial System of Newts. (4) Psychology of Newts. (5) General Zoological Reading.

_May_ 2.

To C---- Hill. Too much taken with the beauty of the Woods to be able to do any nesting. Here are some of the things I saw: the bark on several of the trees in the mazzard orchards rubbed into a beautifully smooth, polished surface by the Red Devon Cows when scratching where it itched; I put my hand on the smooth almost cherry-red patch of bark and felt delighted and grateful that cows had fleas: the young shoots of the whortle-berry plants on the hill were red tipped with the gold of an almost horizontal sun. I caught a little lizard which slipped across my path.... Afar off down in the valley I had come through, in a convenient break in a holly bush, I could just see a Cow sitting on her matronly haunches in a field. She flicked her ears and two starlings settled on her back. A Rabbit swept out of a sweet-brier bush, and a Magpie flew out of the hedge on my right.

In another direction I could see a field full of luscious, tall, green gra.s.s. Every stalk was so full of sap that had I cut one I am sure it would have bled great green drops. In the field some lambs were sleeping; one woke up and looked at me with the back of its head to the low sun, which shone through its two small ears and gave them a transparent pink appearance.

No sooner am I rebaptized in the sun than I have to be turning home again. No sooner do "the sudden lilies push between the loosening fibres of the heart" than I am whisked back into the old groove--the daily round. If only I had more time!--more time in which to think, to love, to observe, to frame my disposition, to direct as far as in me lies the development and unfolding of my character, if only I could direct all my energies to the great and difficult profession of life, of being man instead of trifling with one profession that bores me and dabbling in another.

_June_ 5.

_On Lundy Island_

Frankie is blowing Seagulls' eggs in the scullery. His father, after a day's work at the farm, is at his supper very hungry, yet immensely interested, and calls out occasionally,--

"'Ow you're getting on, Foreman?"

"All right, Capt.," says Frankie affectionately, and the unpleasant asthmatic, wheezy noise of the egg-blowing goes on.... There are three dogs asleep under the kitchen table; all three belong to different owners and neither one to A----.

_June_ 6.

Our egg-collecting with the Lighthouse Keepers. They walk about the cliffs as surefooted as cats, and feed their dogs on birds' eggs collected in a little bag at the end of a long pole. One dog ate three right off in as many minutes, putting his teeth through and cracking the sh.e.l.l, then lapping up the contents. Crab for tea.

_June_ 7.

After a glorious day at the N. end of the Island with the Puffins, was forced to-night to take another walk, as the smell of Albert's tobacco, together with that of his stockinged feet and his boots removed, was asphyxiating.

_June_ 9.

The governess is an awfully pretty girl. We have been talking together to-day and she asked me if I were a naturalist. I said "Yes." She said, "Well, I found a funny little beetle yesterday and Mr. S---- said I ought to have given it to you." Later, I felt she was looking at me, so I looked at her, across the beach. Yes! it was true. When our eyes met she gave me one of the most provokingly pretty smiles, then turned and went up the cliff path and so out of my life--to my everlasting regret.

Return to-night in a cattle steamer.

_June_ 18.

Dr.----, M.A., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D., called in the office to-day, and seeing Dad typing, said, "Are you Mr. Barbellion?" Dad replied in the affirmative, whereupon the Doctor handed him his card, and Dad said he thought it was his son he wanted to see. He is an old gentleman aged eighty or thereabouts, with elastic-sided boots, an umbrella, and a guardian nephew--a youngster of about sixty. But I paid him due reverence as a celebrated zoologist and at his invitation [and to my infinite pride] accompanied him on an excursion to the coast, where he wanted to see _Philoscia Couchii_, which I readily turned up for him.

I chanced to remark that I thought torsion in gastropods one of the most fascinating and difficult problems in Zoology. Why should a snail be twisted round?

"Humph," said he, "why do we stand upright?" I was not such a fool as to argue with him, so pretended his reply was a knock-out. But it enabled me to size him up intellectually.

In the evening dined with him at his hotel.... He knows Wallace and Haeckel personally, and I sat at his feet with my tongue out listening to personal reminiscences of these great men. However, he seemed never to have heard of Gaskell's Theory on the Origin of Vertebrates.

_June_ 27.

Walked to V----. As usual, Nature with clockwork regularity had all her taps turned on--larks singing, cherries ripening, and bees humming. It all bored me a little. Why doesn't she vary it a little?

_August_ 8.

A cold note from Dr. ---- saying that he cannot undertake the responsibility of advising me to give up journalism for zoology.

A h.e.l.lish cold in the head. Also a swingeing inflammation of the eyes.

Just heard them singing in the Chapel over the way: "G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Hope so, I'm sure.

_August_ 9.

A transformation. After a long series of drab experiences in Sheffield, etc., the last being the climax of yesterday, an anti-cyclone arrived this morning and I sailed like an Eagle into cloudless, windless weather! _The Academy_ has published my article, my cold is suddenly better, and going down by the sea this afternoon met Mary ----!

_August_ 20.

Had an amusing letter from my maiden-aunt F----, who does not like "the agnostic atmosphere" in my _Academy_ article. Poor dear! She is sorry if I really feel like that, and, if I do, what a pity to put it into print.

Then a Bible reference to the Epistle to the Romans.

_Xmas Day_.

Feeling ill--like a sloppy Tadpole. My will is paralysed. I visit the Doctor regularly to be stethoscoped, ramble about the streets, idly scan magazines in the Library and occasionally rink--with palpitation of the heart as a consequence. In view of the shortness, bitterness, and uncertainty of life, all scientific labour for me seems futile.

1910

_January_ 10.

Better, but still very d.i.c.ky: a pallid animal: a weevil in a nut. I have a weak heart, an enervated nervous system; I suffer from lack of funds with which to carry on my studies; I hate newspaper-reporting--particularly some skinny-witted speaker like ----; and last, but not least, there are women; all these worries fight over my body like jackals over carrion. Yet Zoology is all I want. Why won't Life leave me alone?

_January_ 15.

Reading Hardy's novels. He is altogether delightful in the subtlety with which he lets you perceive the first tiny love presentiments between his heroes and heroines--the casual touch of the hands, the peep of a foot or ankle underneath the skirt--all these in Hardy signify the cloud no bigger than a man's hand. They are the susurrus of the breeze before the storm, and you await what is to follow with palpitating heart.

_February_ 3.